Forming machines



April 12, 1960 G APPEL 2,932,197

FORMING MACHINES Filed Sept. 10, 1958 4 Sheets-Sheet l INVENTOR.

- GERHARD H. APPEL BY w mm ATTORNEYS G. H. APPEL 2,932,197

FORMING MACHINES April 12, 1960 4 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Sept. 10, 1958 LGAD INVENTOR.

GERHARD H. APPEL BY E-f :1 mm) a; Qm i ATTORNEYS April 12, 1960 G. H. APPEL FORMING MACHINES 4 Sheets-Sheet 5 Filed Sept. 10, 1958 a R P m P A E. V H m nywwmy ATTORNEYS April 1960 G. H. APPEL 2,932,197

FORMING MACHINES Filed Sept. 10, 1958 4 Sheets-Sheet 4 I i I P3; Z INVENTOR. GERHARD H. APPEL BY w ATTORNEYS United States Patent FORMING MACHINES Gerhard H. Appel, Belle River, Ontario, Canada, assignor to Appel Process, Ltd., Oshawa, Ontario, Canada Application September 10, 1958, Serial No. 760,269

1 Claim. (Cl. 78-41) This application relates to forming machines.

The machine disclosed herein is a combination of workpiece forming and feeding means so constructed and arranged that a workpiece is fed into forming parts of a forming machine and there formed.

By now the art has become aware of my forming machines and methods wherein a workpiece is longitudinally fed and rotated into a throat of at least three forming dies which move oppositely, radially and inwardly and simultaneously for forming the increment of the workpiece in such throat, with feed and forming being in ofl-beat relation so that feed steps take place between forming steps and vice versa, and so that feed takes place while the pressure of the dies is relieved from the workpiece increment in the die throat and forming takes place while the workpiece is held stationary in the throat and is blocked against rearward movement and is, of course, relieved of forward movement bias.

One example is shown by my prior United States application Ser. No. 450,500, filed August 17, 1956, now abandoned, whose disclosures are incorporated hereinto by reference.

More specifically this application relates to such a forming machine having as a part thereof a cam constructed to cause the dies to move.

The novel cam hereof generally corresponds to the cam shown in my prior application mentioned above, but difiers therefrom specifically in the novel cam shape; namely, the cam hereof has its central portion flat and level and its end portions raised. A machine having such a cam operates the dies in such machine in a more satisfactory manner, insuring against die and workpiece scaling, and as well operating more smoothly and with improved control.

For an understanding of the machine hereof, reference should be had to the appended drawings.

In these drawings:

Fig. 1 is an exploded diagrammatic view of the forming apparatus of the machine in transverse section.

Fig. 2 is an enlarged view of a cam thereof.

Fig. 3 is a load-time diagram of the operation of the cam of Fig. 2.

Fig. 4 is an enlarged view of the conventional form of cam.

Fig. 5 is a load-time diagram showing the operation of the cam of Fig. 4.

Fig. 6 is a step by step diagram of the operation of the cam of Fig. 4.

Fig. 7 is a step by step diagram showing the operation of the cam of Fig. 2.

Fig. 1 of the drawings shows a machine wherein dies move inwardly in the die strokes in off-beat relation to the feed of a workpiece to a die throat, it being understood that the workpiece feeds longitudinally through the die throat. The feed strokes are in off-beat relation to the die strokes or forming strokes.

The machine itself has previously been described in the prior application Ser. No. 450,500. However, for

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2 purposes of illustration, we have shown enough of such machine in Fig. l to disclose and describe the complete operation of the machine so far as necessary for the purposes of this application.

Thus, Fig. 1 shows a continuously revolving motor 10 having a clutch (not shown) whereby it may be connected to a pinion 16 meshing with the ring gear 18 in turn meshing with four pinions 20 mounted on four shafts 22. Each of these four shafts 22 mounts two longitudinally spaced eccentrics 24 displaced relatively 90 degrees. The eight eccentrics are operatively connected to eight rings 28 of eight driver rods 30.

Thus, when the motor clutch is engaged, the parts 16, 18, 20, 22, and 24 will revolve and because of the eccentricity of the parts 24 and their connection to the rings 28 of the rods 30, the rods will continuously reciprocate simultaneously and oppositely and the eight rods will thus cause forming strokes of dies operated thereby to take place in a properly timed relation to the rotation of the four shafts 22 and the eight eccentrics 24.

The eight driver rods 30, as they continuously and oppositely and simultaneously reciprocate, slide their cams 32 between rollers 34 and 36. Rollers 34 are backed by fixed structure 37 on the frame 38 of the machine. Rollers 36 are between the cam 32 and the die movers 40 in turn separated by springs 42 from dies 44 arranged radially around the workpiece 46 whose longitudinal axis is coaxial with that of the die throat formed by the faces of the dies 44.

Reciprocation of the rods 3% operating through their cams 32 and the rollers 36 and with their reaction backed by the rollers 34 and the fixed structure 3738 and operating on parts 40 causes the dies 44 to move radially towards the workpiece 46 in forming strokes.

The foregoing is all clearly and more in detail described in the co-pending application Ser. No. 450,500.

For purposes of the present application, it is believed sufiicient to say that the apparatus which causes the forming is shown herein only enough to relate it to the workpiece feeding which combines with the forming means to produce the machine and method of the present application.

Further details of the forming operation can be obtained by reference to application Ser. No. 450,500, whose disclosure is incorporated hereinto by reference for this purpose.

It should also be noted that intermittent or off-beat feed means (not shown) is incorporated into this machine whereby the workpiece is fed incrementally in feed strokes into the die throat. Such feed means is old and well-known and is shown in my prior application Ser. No. 561,466 of January 26, 1956, whose disclosure is incorporated hereinto by reference and is hence, not here disclosed.

The specific improvements Specifically, this application discloses as an improvement a novel shape for cam 32, shown best in Fig. 2. The cam 32, as shown in the drawings hereof, has its center or rest portion 50 cylindrical and its end or load portions 51 enlarged whereby for a portion of the driver rod motion the driver rods do not have any eifect upon the dies, this corresponding to the flat level portion 50 or center. portion of the cam. However, towards the ends of the strokes of the driver rods, due to the raised or enlarged portions 51 of the earns, a cam bias is imparted to the dies very quickly and this causes the proper action of the dies for forming.

Immediately after the dies are thus biased by the raised or load portions 51 of the cams on the driver rod strokes, the level portions 50 of the cams reach the die movers to terminate the cam bias on these die movers and to provide a substantial rest period during which the die movers return to their original position.

Because of the provision of the level portion of the cam, immediately ahead of and immediately behind each cam bias on the die mover, there is no rebound under load of the die movers and dies immediately following each die movement and this is obviously of great advantage in the machine.

The foregoing is all illustrated in Figs. 3 and 6 of the drawings which illustrate the relation between the loads imparted by the cam to the die and the endwise cam movement. The reverse bends R in the curves shown illustrate rebound or reverse load points. Figs. 3 and 6 show that such rebound takes place during the time when the flat level part of the cam is moving across the die axis and has terminated before the raised portions of the cams cross the die axis for loading the dies for forming. Thus, with the cam of this application, that is to say, the cam with the fiat level center portion of considerable length between the raised end portions, there is a considerable period of movement of the cam without load on the dies and this period is long enough to prevent any rebound from taking place during the loading of the dies from the cams by means of the end portions of the cams and the relaxed or no load period is sufficiently long to prevent the formation of scale on the dies and workpiece. It is understood that scale will form on these parts when the conventional cam of Fig. 4 is used due to the rebound and the presence of minor loads on the dies caused by the absence of a flat level center portion on the cam and the presence of a gradually increasing height of the cam starting at the very center of the cam. Thus, even during feeding strokes, which take place while the center part of the cam crosses the die axis, there is a gradually increasing load applied by the cams to the dies and this causes die and workpiece scaling.

Now having described the construction herein shown, reference should be had to the claim which follows.

I claim:

In a forming machine having at least three dies mounted to move radially for forming the external surface of a workpiece in the throat formed by such dies, means for moving the workpiece intermittently and incrementally step by step on its longitudinal axis in such throat in feed strokes, means for moving the dies intermittently and incrementally radially towards and away from the axis of the throat and workpiece in forming strokes, means coordinating the forming strokes of the dies to the feeding strokes of the workpiece in oif-beat relation, with the means for moving the dies radially including for each die a pair of oppositely and simultaneously moving members, these having cams for cam biasing the dies to move radially, with the members moving oppositely and simultaneously and transversely of the path of movement of the die moved by each pair of members, there being on each member a cam, whereby member movement cam biases the die, each cam being double faced, the machine having rollers on opposite faces of the cam, one roller for each cam being between such cam and fixed structure of the machine, the other roller for each cam being between the cam and the die moved thereby, with each cam face being concave and having not only raised ends but also a fiat level center part.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,569,707 Cardell Oct. 2, 1951 2,589,096 Landergren Mar. 11, 1952 2,863,342 Appel Dec. 9, 1958 

